Reviews of new fiction, poetry, mysteries, thrillers, romance, science-fiction, and graphic novels
Apr 19, 2010
Percival's Planet Michael Byers. Holt, $27 (400p) ISBN 978-0-8050-9218-9
Byers (Long for This World) offers a gloriously expansive view of Depression-era America, from the easy extravagance of the Boston Brahmins to hardscrabble rural life. At its core, this is the story of Clyde Tombaugh, an unassuming Kansas farm kid who achieves international fame for his discovery of Pluto. In addition to Clyde, there is the Harvard crowd that precedes him at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona: Alan Barber, a man of modest background who aspires to the effortless grace of his wealthy colleague, Dick Morrow, and has a crush on Dick's scholarly and daring girlfriend, Florence. Byers connects Clyde's story with a number of riveting and eventually interlinking subplots, among them an archeological dig run by the wealthy Felix DuPrie, who has turned his back on the family business to try his hand at unearthing dinosaur bones, and the touching tale of Edward Howe, a former professional boxer who pines after his gorgeous and troubled secretary, whose delusions are portrayed with an amazing sensitivity and realism. Between the faultless storytelling and the juicy historical hook, it looks like a hit. (Aug.)
Rich Boy Sharon Pomerantz. Hachette/Twelve, $24.99 (514p) ISBN 978-0-446-56318-5
Pomerantz digs into notions of class and wealth in her debut, chronicling the upward strivings of a middle-class Jew as he loses himself in the strange world of the fabulously wealthy. Blessed with good looks and a bright mind, Robert Vishniak dreams of escaping his Philadelphia neighborhood. His first stop is Tufts, where, in 1965, he rooms with Sanford Trace, the rogue son of a wealthy family. Robert tags along with Trace and his buddies, who introduce him to Smith College girls, fancy clothes, and New York State's elegant Tuxedo Park. Family ties become strained as Robert is seduced by beauty and privilege, attends law school at NYU, and sinks into a cushy law firm job. Much of the narrative is structured around Robert's relationships with three women: Gwendolyn Smythe, a Brit with a terrible secret; his wife, Crea, the daughter of his law firm's founding partner; and Sally Johannson, a shoeshine girl from his old neighborhood. More a soap opera than an excavation of the spiritual malaise of the wealthy, the novel will satisfy those looking for an easy-reading saga with an intriguing, complicated hero at its center. (Aug.)
This Must Be the Place Kate Racculia. Holt, $25 (336p) ISBN 978-0-8050-9230-1
Racculia's irresistibly charming debut is an artful mix of genres: oddball domestic (set in a boardinghouse, characters named Desdemona and Oneida), coming-of-age (high school loves and teen angst) and literary women's fiction (love, loss, and friendship). Sixteen years ago, Amy Henderson ran away from home to become a special effects creator in Hollywood. After she is killed in an on-set accident, her widower, Arthur, finds a box of memorabilia and sets off to her hometown to understand her past. He moves into a boardinghouse run by Amy's childhood best friend, Mona, and her teenage daughter, Oneida. Initially, Mona acts as Arthur's emotional nurse, but as they realize they hold answers for each other about Amy, their bond grows deeper. Oneida, meanwhile, gets involved with a local bad boy. The third act is nearly done in by an overly foreshadowed secret, but Racculia smartly keeps the focus on Oneida, Arthur, and Mona's reactions to the revelation (rather than the reveal itself). With its happy ending and rich trove of Gen-X references and humor, this is a thoroughly enjoyable first novel, both accessibly absurd and quite touching. (July)
The Thieves of Manhattan Adam Langer. Random/Spiegel & Grau, $15 paper (272p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6891-3
Langer (Crossing California) delivers an über-hip caper that pays homage to and skewers the state of publishing and flash-in-the-pan authors. Aspiring writer Ian Minot toils in a New York City diner, enraged because he can't get published. His jealousy is pushed to the edge because he suspects the bestselling memoir about drug addiction and being in a gang by no-talent Blade Markham is a fake. Then Ian's Romanian girlfriend, Anya Petrescu, easily finds a publisher for her short stories. Ian becomes the latest author to be embroiled in a headline-making literary scam when he can't resist a scheme in which he passes off another man's novel about a valuable manuscript as his own memoir. The consummate con game takes a deadly turn after Ian realizes he doesn't understand the ramifications of his book nor does he control his emerging career. Part Bright Lights, Big City, part The Grifters, this delicious satire of the literary world is peppered with slang so trendy a glossary is included. (July)
Ship of Rome John Stack. Harper (Trafalgar Square, dist.), $12.95 paper (362p) ISBN 978-0-00-728524-2
In this historically accurate debut, Stack vividly recreates the Roman Republic and its first attempts at a Roman navy. Capt. Atticus Perennis is a Roman of Greek ancestry and master of the trireme Aquila. Septimus Capito is one of the first marine Centurions. The two brothers-in-arms must confront both the vagaries of the Senate, with its backstabbing, self-aggrandizing politics, and the difficulties of developing the concept of naval warfare. Characteriza-tion tends to take a backseat to the abundant historical data, as Stack fills his stirring story brimming with the minutiae of Roman military life circa 200 B.C. and the strategic details of conducting battles at sea from slave-powered galleys, but fans of historical naval fiction will be thrilled by this exploration of an oft-ignored era. (July)
The Poet Prince: Book III of the Magdalene Line Kathleen McGowan. Touchstone, $25.99 (416p) ISBN 978-0-7432-9998-5
In bestseller McGowan's breathless, at times overly melodramatic third Magdalene Line novel (after The Book of Love), researcher Maureen Paschal, who's been feverishly investigating the “Confraternity of Saint Mary Magdalen,” uncovers juicy information about the gospel known as the Libro Rosso and the Order of the Holy Sepulcher. She heads for Florence, where her preternaturally ancient mentor, Destino, reveals the arcane past of Lorenzo de' Medici, “the great Poet Prince” and father of the Renaissance. Apparently, Lorenzo secretly married Lucrezia Donati, the “Colombina” or “little dove” featured in a number of Botticelli paintings. Maureen must also confront problems with her soul mate, Scottish oil mogul Bérenger Sinclair, after a glamorous ex claims he's fathered her son. This quasi-Christian historical fantasy confection slips back and forth in time with seamless ease. Mary Magdalene fans who enjoy wildly romantic conspiracy theories will be thrilled. (June)
Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English Natasha Solomons. Little, Brown/Reagan Arthur, $23.99 (368p) ISBN 978-0-316-07758-3
Screenwriter Solomons's debut novel is the pleasant, ripped-from-the-family-archives story of German exile Jack Rosenblum and his unlikely postwar quest to build a golf course in the Dorset countryside. Fresh off the boat and with a “Helpful Information and Friendly Guidance for Every Refugee” pamphlet in hand, Jack dives passionately into assimilation, starting a booming carpet business, buying his suits at Henry Poole and his hats at Lock of St. James, and avoiding his native tongue at all costs. And while he can afford golf clubs at Harrod's, he can't check off the last item on his list: join a golf club. On impulse, he buys a damp acreage and embarks on the final leg of his assimilation. Meanwhile, his wife, Sadie, obsesses over the past, churning out Baumtortes and other confections. It's undeniably winsome, and while the pace is lackadaisical at best, the details of postwar Britain are nicely observed, and the narrative offers a sweet perspective on some very heavily traveled turf. (June)
The Burning Wire: A Lincoln Rhyme Novel Jeffery Deaver. Simon & Schuster, $26.99 (448p) ISBN 978-1-4391-5633-9
An explosion at a Manhattan electrical power substation that destroys a bus—followed by threats of much worse violence unless Algonquin Consolidated Power and Light meets virtually impossible demands—sparks Deaver's sterling ninth Lincoln Rhyme novel (after The Broken Window). Forensic expert Rhyme takes charge of looking into the fatal blast, aided by his partner and sometime lover, field agent Amelia Sachs, among others. Rhyme is able to glean many clues from the scant trace evidence left by the elusive killer at the crime scene. Meanwhile, Rhyme is also staying in close touch with Mexican army and police commander Rodolfo Luna, who's tracking dangerous assassin Richard Logan (aka the Watchmaker) in Mexico City. The twin investigations take an increasingly dangerous toll on quadriplegic Rhyme's precarious physical health. Not even the brilliant Rhyme can foresee the shocking twists the case will take in this electrically charged thriller. (June)
The Great Lover Jill Dawson. Harper Perennial, $13.99 paper (336p) ISBN 978-0-06-192436-1
Dawson (Trick of Light) adroitly weaves together fact and fiction in this artful account of British poet Rupert Brooke's mental breakdown in the years before WWI. Boyishly handsome, Brooke arrives in Grantchester, England, and quickly begins a series of tangled romances. He woos a reserved schoolgirl, loses his virginity to a male friend, and flirts shamelessly with numerous women. Observing these ill-advised exploits is a no-nonsense housemaid, Nell Golightly, who, recently orphaned, thinks of herself as immune to love. Then one fateful evening she comes across Brooke naked, on his way for a night swim. Their subsequent relationship is complicated by class and Brooke's bisexuality. For Nell, the relationship poignantly marks the boundary between childhood and adulthood, while for Brooke, Nell provides a counterpoint to his other sexually confusing relationships. Finally, insecure about his poetry, grappling with his brother's death, and shattered by his failed affairs, Brooke begins to come undone, eventually finding solace with a Tahitian woman. Burrowing deep inside Brooke's mind, Nell is a capable narrator, and the result is a believable, sensitive portrayal of a “great lover's” search for love. (June)
The Starlet Mary McNamara. Simon & Schuster, $15 paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-4391-4984-3
McNamara's over-the-top follow-up to Oscar Season brings back Juliette Greyson, head of public relations at an exclusive L.A. hotel. Juliette is vacationing in Florence when she sees drug-addled starlet Mercy Talbot about to dive into a fountain, much to the delight of the paparazzi. Reluctantly, Juliette rescues Mercy, who is AWOL from a movie shoot in Rome, and takes her to Cerreta, a country estate that Juliette half-owns. As Mercy seems less fraught out of Rome, the movie shoot relocates to Cerreta, and Juliette gets saddled with Mercy's harridan of a mother, dozens of Hollywood types weighed down by addiction, neuroses, and narcissism, and worst of all, Michael O'Connor, screen legend and Juliette's one-time lover. Attempted murders, detectives, overdoses, celebrity self-help gurus, and Cerreta's financial woes are all rolled into a messy but entertaining whole. The setting—Perugia in the summer—works well as a backdrop for this colorful, all-stops-out seriocomic romp. (June)
Our Red Hot Romance Is Leaving Me Blue Dixie Cash. Avon A, $13.99 paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-06-143439-6
When hunky firefighter Justin Sadler's late wife, Rachel, appears to be trying to communicate from beyond the grave with refrigerator magnets in the pseudonymous Cash's (Curing the Blues with a New Pair of Shoes) wacky sixth novel, Justin asks the Domestic Equalizers, Debbie Sue Overstreet and Edwina Perkins-Martin, of Salt Lick, Tex., to determine whether his house is really haunted. Debbie Sue and Ed, who also own the Styling Station beauty salon, accept the challenge, while a young teacher moonlighting as a “mentalist,” Sophia Paredes, who's the granddaughter of a recently deceased El Paso psychic, also agrees to help Justin. Adding some skullduggery to the ghostly goings-on is Justin's greedy brother-in-law, who covets the mineral rights of Justin's ranch. Cash (Texas sisters Pamela Cumbie and Jeffery McClanahan) neatly mixes woo-woo weirdness and romance with the gosh-darn Texas humor fans expect from this light crime series. (June)
Supreme Justice Phillip Margolin. Harper, $25.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-06-192651-8
In this entertaining if predictable sequel to Executive Privilege (2008) from Margolin, policewoman Sarah Woodruff, who's on death row in Oregon, has been tried twice for murdering her lover, John Finley. Sarah's life depends on an appeal to the Supreme Court, but her appeal, if heard, could expose a criminal plot within the CIA. An unexpected vacancy in the court provides one opportunity to quash Woodruff's attempted appeal. For the man at the center of the plot, however, this isn't enough, and a Supreme Court justice becomes a target for assassination. Once again PI Dana Cutler and law clerk Brad Miller find themselves investigating dastardly doings in Washington, D.C., involving a host of conventional characters, from scheming Beltway sachems to a ghetto-raised African-American justice. Thriller fans who like to see the villains receive their just rewards and the good guys come to no harm will find this a comforting read. (June)
The Spy Clive Cussler and Justin Scott. Putnam, $27.95 (448p) ISBN 978-0-399-15643-4
Set in 1908, bestseller Cussler and Scott's action-packed third adventure featuring Isaac Bell, head operative of the Van Dorn Detective Agency, leaves behind the railroad theme of the first two books (The Chase and The Wrecker), focusing instead on the espionage-riddled world of warship and armament manufacturing in the buildup to WWI. Someone is murdering the leading lights of America's naval research and development. When the indefatigable Bell looks into the supposed suicide of chief gun designer Arthur Langner, he uncovers a succession of possible international suspects, all of whom are attempting to disrupt America's development of a fleet of dreadnought battleships. Bell clashes with old enemies and new until the climactic battle, where he must stop a massive submarine attempting to sink the navy's newest battleship. The expanded area of interest will attract new readers to this exciting series in the Cussler franchise. (June)
Hailey's War Jodi Compton. Crown/Shaye Areheart, $22.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-307-58805-0
In this Kill Bill—style revenge thriller from Compton (The 37th Hour), 24-year-old Hailey Cane, a San Francisco bike messenger, throws herself into the belly of the beast to atone for past sins. After washing out of West Point for reasons she's hiding, and fleeing Los Angeles after accidentally killing the only son of a dangerous music mogul, fearless Hailey teams with the Trece Sucias, a Latina gang, and takes on what turns out to be the mission of a lifetime—escorting a young woman back to Mexico. But her charge brings along more baggage than what fits into the V6 Impala rented for the drive. Despite Compton's efforts to give her heroine complexity, Hailey is mostly rough exterior. Minus an icky attraction to her drawly cousin, CJ, and her occasional hobby of talking people down from the Golden Gate Bridge, she has no soft inside. It's hard to sympathize, even in the face of her brutal torture, when the only war this soldier is fighting is the one she started herself. (June)
The Rebellion of Jane Clarke Sally Gunning. Morrow, $24.99 (273p) ISBN 978-0-06-178214-5
Gunning's blazing third historical (after Bound) takes readers into the heart of Revolutionary War—era Boston, where young Jane Clarke has been sent to care for her great-aunt Gill after refusing to marry the man her loyalist father has chosen for her. Not long after settling into her aunt's house near the British Custom House, Jane is thrust into the milieu of violence and intrigue that eventually leads to a declaration of independence by the American colonists. She befriends the bookseller Henry Knox and meets John Adams, who employs her brother as a clerk. As tensions mount, Jane watches the men around her grow more aggressive in their aversion to British rule, and less concerned with truth. When she is caught up in the Boston Massacre, she must come to terms with the importance of honesty over personal and political passions. There's a history textbook's worth of well-done cameos, but it's Gunning's fluid writing and attention to the larger issues of human nature that really make this move. Good historical fiction offers new perspectives on old stories. This book succeeds handily at the task. (June)
Never Wave Goodbye Doug Magee. Touchstone, $24.99 (352p) ISBN 978-1-4391-5398-7
Magee fails to deliver on the promising setup of his debut, a contemporary thriller. Soon after oncologist Lena Trainor packs her nine-year-old daughter, Sarah, off to summer camp, loading her into a van with the camp logo and signing release forms with official letterhead, a second camp van pulls up at Lena's Pelham, N.Y., home, and she realizes her child has been abducted. The kidnappers make off with three other children in Westchester County through the same ruse. Wracked with guilt and concerned about her husband's suspicious absence, Lena joins with the other victimized families to figure out their best strategy for a happy outcome. Magee shifts among the perspectives of the parents, the missing children, and the kidnappers, but doesn't manage to make any of the characters particularly engaging. A twist involving the fate of one of the kidnappers reduces the suspense, while the revelation of the person behind the sophisticated plot is a letdown. (June)
The Lies We Told Diane Chamberlain. Mira, $13.95 paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-7783-2853-7
A hurricane's aftermath affects two sisters whose parents were murdered when they were teens in Chamberlain's (Secrets She Left Behind) murky melodrama. Maya is a frustrated pediatric orthopedist who continues to miscarry the babies her anesthesiologist husband Adam wants. Rebecca, Maya's single older sister, is a free spirit working for Doctors International Disaster Aid and has no interest in having children. After two devastating hurricanes hit North Carolina, Maya and Adam join Rebecca at the aid organization, then Maya goes missing after a helicopter crash. Adam and Rebecca console each other, believing Maya dead, but she's been rescued by creepy country hick Tully. Nursed back to health by Tully's pregnant common-law wife, Simmee, an angelic seventeen-year-old, and Lady Alice Harnett, an eccentric African-American, Maya sees her life about to change drastically. Chamberlain provides an interesting glimpse into how disaster relief works, but Maya's improbable backwoods adventure and its unlikely outcome lead to a feel-sort-of-good resolution that doesn't ring true. (June)
The Perfect Happiness Santa Montefiore. Touchstone, $15 paper (416p) ISBN 978-1-4391-8346-5
Angelica Lariviere is living in London and seems to have it all: a handsome French banker husband, two adorable children, devoted friends, and a successful career as a children's book author. Then she meets Jack Meyer at a dinner party, and her world turns upside down. They hit it off immediately, and the flirtation advances from words to deeds. Things really heat up on a trip to South Africa, where Jack owns vineyards and Angelica is on a book tour. When she returns home, she begins to realize how rich her life is and what she would be risking by following her desire. This run-of-the-mill female midlife crisis novel has few surprises and even the ending twist will be caught early on by any reader who's paying attention. While Montefiore's supporting characters sparkle, her leads are dull, especially in their pseudophilosophical repartee. Cuckolded husband Olivier becomes more interesting as the story progresses, but Angelica and Jack fail to set off any sparks. (June)
God Ain't Through Yet Mary Monroe. Kensington/Dafina, $24 (332p) ISBN 978-0-7582-3859-7
Monroe tacks on another witty and wise installment to her God series (God Ain't Blind; etc.), picking up after Annette Davis's disastrous affair with a con man. This time out, Annette's long-suffering “perfect husband,” Pee Wee, turns the tables and dumps Annette for his barbershop's manicurist, Lizzie Stovall. Annette feels especially betrayed because she'd helped Lizzie, a former classmate, get that job. But life must go on, and after Lizzie and Pee Wee move in together, Annette embarks on a questionable affair with an old flame and worries about her 11-year-old daughter, who's growing up way too fast. Also making waves is Jade Marie, whose marriage to milquetoast LaVerne takes a shocking turn. If this raunchy and rambunctious book is any indication, Monroe's series has a lot of life left in it. (June)
The Spot: Stories David Means. FSG/Faber and Faber, $23 (176p) ISBN 978-0-86547-912-8
A natural storyteller, Means (The Secret Goldfish) presents 13 nuanced tales of wanderlust and transgression. Hoboes around a campfire spin elaborate yarns in two of the richest stories, offering just enough confession to keep the others' interest: “The Blade” finds an improbable friendship between an old geezer and a young junkie, culminating in a requisite “blade-to-the-throat” story; while “The Junction” pursues a vagrant who begs food at a farmhouse that is strikingly similar to the home he grew up in. The American landscape is vividly sketched in these tales, traversed by the Bonnie-and-Clyde meets Charles Starkweather team of young bank robbers in “Nebraska,” and the manipulative con man of “Oklahoma.” Similarly, the title story details a jaunty pimp's shameless exploitation of a girl with a horrific past, culminating in a grim discovery at Niagara Falls. There's not an off note to be found in Means's prose, and he proves to be remarkably adept at locating the sublime in the unseemly. (June)
A Life on Paper: Stories Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, trans. from the French by Edward Gauvin. Small Beer (Consortium, dist.), $22 (240p) ISBN 978-1-931520-62-1
These 22 curious tales verging on the perverse will strike new English readers of Châteaureynaud's work as a wonderful find. Beautiful prose featuring ingenuous protagonists and clever, unexpected forays into horror are the hallmarks of these mischievous stories. The husband of the title tale, reeling from the untimely loss of his much younger wife, tries to capture her essence in their daughter, whom he photographs obsessively. By the time of the daughter's untimely death, there are 93,284 photographs. “The Pest” chronicles the narrator's tireless attempts to rid himself of his odious doppelgänger, even setting up his own suicide. A doctor interviews a decapitated head in “La Tête” and vows to help put it out of its misery. Châteaureynaud is tremendously skillful at setting up disorienting stories with convincing details and characters, as evidenced in “The Styx,” narrated by a dead man who assists at his own burial ceremony a little too importunately, until he's pushed out of the moving hearse. Translator Gauvin does a fine job of harnessing the nervous, thrilling feel of these tales. (June)
Galveston Nic Pizzolatto. Scribner, $25 (288p) ISBN 978-1-4391-6664-2
Pizzolatto, author of the story collection Between Here and the Yellow Sea, takes a hard-edged look at the stormy life of a compassionate criminal in his impressive first novel. On the same day in 1987 he's diagnosed with lung cancer, Roy Cady flees New Orleans, taking along Raquel “Rocky” Arceneaux, a pretty 18-year-old with a lurid past, whom he rescues from some hoods in the wake of a bloodbath. Rocky persuades him to stop in Orange, Tex., to pick up Tiffany, her three-year-old sister, and by the time they reach refuge in a rundown Galveston motel, 40-year-old Roy finds himself an unlikely father figure even as he struggles with a romantic attraction to Rocky. Pizzolatto's insightful portrayal of the heroic Roy, who takes a beating for trying to help the two girls, is rough and tumble real. As Pizzolatto switches smoothly between past and present, he vividly captures Galveston in all its desperate vulnerability as it faces the approach of Hurricane Ike in September 2008. (June)
The Secrets of Newberry Victor McGlothin. Grand Central, $13.99 paper (384p) ISBN 978-0-446-17813-6
McGlothin (Sinful Too) explores themes of race in 1955 New Orleans via the spirited capers of his two protagonists, Bones Arcineaux and Hampton Bynote. Hampton, from the nearby village of Newberry, is a young and defiant black man who befriends Bones, a young mulatto dandy. They partner as cat burglars hitting affluent French Quarter residences until one heist ends in the murder of a white city politician. Back in Newberry, Hampton falls in love with Magnolia Holiday, but they're separated after the New Orleans cops, unable to nab Hampton for the murder, arrest him for a lesser crime that gets him locked up for 14 months. Jumping ahead to 1971, Hampton and Magnolia are settled with a family when Bones shows up with plans for him and his old friend, but despite their criminal association, a more ominous issue arises from an unexpected quarter. Though the villains are little more than piggish caricatures, McGlothin's rugged prose captures the sultry locale, and the suspenseful edge is a nice complement to the story's social conscience. (June)
What He's Poised to Do Ben Greenman. Harper Perennial, $13.99 paper (208p) ISBN 978-0-06-198740-3
Fourteen very self-conscious stories from Greenman (Please Step Back) demonstrate the author's easy hand with formal manipulation, though his command over emotional terrain proves to be circumspect. The collection is bracketed by two very short stories (the title story and “Her Hand”) built around picture postcards (indeed, postmarks appear at the beginning of each story), and the varied stories between them all move with transparency; Greenman's prose is polished to a fine gloss that handily guides the reader along. While some stories only get a few details—two stories with cloyingly cute and very long titles are among the shortest; their titles virtual punch lines—others spin on, dominated less by substance than by stylistic demands, as with “Seventeen Different Ways to Get a Load of That,” which documents a relationship breakdown in short numbered cuts. The strongest story, “What We Believe We Cannot Praise,” about changing dynamics at a law firm, hints at Greenman's talent and begs for a longer treatment than it gets in this chilly if playful collection. (June)
Firework Eugene Marten. NY Tyrant (nytyrantbooks.com), $14.95 paper (370p) ISBN 978-1-61658-964-6
A bleak third novel by Marten (Waste) obliquely pursues paranoia and grim circumstance via the twisted story of Jelonnek, a colorless, tight-lipped, not unsympathetic state government functionary, who, as the novel opens, is in jail after having been arrested during a prostitution sting. After his release, Jelonnek's routine is revealed: his live-in girlfriend is an equally nondescript bank employee. They both drink a lot, and he repeatedly watches the video of the same Kansas City Chiefs football game. The plot collects some impetus when Jelonnek attends his brother's wedding; while on a cigarette run with his sister's boyfriend, George, he finds himself on a horrifying joy ride after George picks up two black prostitutes and turns frighteningly abusive. After they ditch George, a road trip ensues with Jelonnek driving one of the women, Littlebit, and her young daughter, Miss D, to California to find an elusive cousin. Marten plays with ethnic and racial stereotypes and notions of “family,” as the three outcasts form a startlingly caring unit despite Jelonnek's increasing unbalance. Marten seems to delight in making the reader uncomfortable, though his prose can be as obfuscating as it is enlightening, blunting the impact of his unapologetically stark worldview. (June)
Beirut 39: New Writing from the Arab World Edited by Samuel Shimon. Bloomsbury, $16 paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-60819-202-1
This fascinating collection of pieces by 39 young Arab voices from all over the world was put together by the Hay Festival in celebration of Beirut's 2009 selection as World Book Capital. Incorporating stories, poems, and novel excerpts, the enormously varied lineup includes Abdellah Taia's “The Wounded Man,” about a gay university student in Morocco watching a forbidden French film during Ramadan; an excerpt from Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmad Saadwi, in which a garbage-diver searches for the perfect nose to complete the “hybrid body” he's assembling; and “Haneef from Glasgow” by Mohammad Hassan, in which a Kashmiri immigrant is viewed through the eyes of his Saudi employers' son. Nazem El Sayed contributes delightfully compact revelations in his “Thirteen Poems”; Randa Jarrar takes a tender look at a Palestinian boy in “The Story of My Building”; Hala Kawtharani explores the Beirut of the 1950s and '60s in “Lebanon/Switzerland? Beirut/Paris?” Because they are so involving and diverse, readers may be frustrated by the entries' brevity, though anyone working on their to-read list will find plenty of ideas. (June)
Little Town, Great Big Life Curtiss Ann Matlock. Mira, $13.95 paper (352p) ISBN 978-0-7783-2788-2
Valentine, Okla., is the kind of town where everybody knows or wants everybody else's secrets; a handicapped boy is appreciated for his deep wisdom; an old man and a dog get featured on a radio show; and when a stranger comes to town and stays, he's likely to be running from something. In the latest entry in Matlock's bighearted Valentine series (Chin Up, Honey), births, deaths, and the town's centennial celebration form the framework for insightful humor and a sense of close-knit community. Belinda Blaine at the drugstore might be pregnant and is wondering what to do. Seventeen-year-old Paris Miller keeps piling on makeup to hide the bruises inflicted by her grandfather, whom she nevertheless can't bear to lose. Fayrene Gardener, who owns the cafe, is falling for the stranger in town, but is he just another man who'll let her down? And then there's beloved 92-year-old Winston Valentine, who holds everyone together but might finally have to let go of life. Readers should hold on to their hearts; losing them to these unforgettable characters is a real possibility. (June)
Rock Paper Tiger Lisa Brackmann. Soho, $25 (352p) ISBN 978-1-56947-640-6
Ellie Cooper, the heroine of Brackmann's electrifying debut, is an Iraq War vet trying to forget her past while bumming around the fringes of the Beijing art world. Having been ditched by her husband, Trey, a former army interrogator now working in China as a private security consultant, Ellie has drifted into a relationship with the artist Lao Zhang, as well as into a fog of Percocet and ennui in order to escape her memories of Iraq. After Zhang disappears with a mysterious Uighur, Ellie becomes a person of interest to U.S. and Chinese authorities, and soon Ellie's evading goons and cops, getting information from Zhang's friends via a massive multiplayer online game, and flashing back to her experiences as a combat medic at an Abu Ghraib—like detention center. The China scenes are fast paced and strikingly atmospheric, and Ellie's backstory—her and Trey's return from combat is tough, sad, and endearing—is given in doses that perfectly complement the central action. Given the high-octane leadup, the ending is a bit of a letdown, but the book's exotic setting and tough heroine will definitely appeal to fans of John Burdett and Stieg Larsson. (June)
Sweet Misfortune Kevin Alan Milne. Hachette/Center Street, $19.99 (288p) ISBN 978-1-59995-297-0
Milne (The Nine Lessons) slightly dials down his trademark oversentimentality in this serviceable novel of uplift. Chocolatier Sophie Jones carries around much guilt about her parents' accidental death when she was nine, so when her fiancé, Garrett Black, dumps her, she gets to feeling very, very sad. But in a lemons/lemonade moment, she channels her disappointment into a signature cookie: the Misfortune Cookie, which becomes a hit with her customers. She's eventually somewhat content, but then Garrett begs her to take him back, and she presents him with a challenge: prove that true happiness exists. The challenge, while silly, predictably leads them down a path they never expected. While this packs all the warm fuzzies Milne's readers would expect, a flood of too-serendipitous developments strain credibility, even for a cute, disposable confection. For readers willing to do some serious suspending of disbelief, there'll be some smiles. (June)
Fade to Midnight Shannon McKenna. Kensington/Brava, $20.95 (490p) ISBN 978-0-7582-2865-9
Kevin McCloud, believed dead for 18 years, resurfaces in fantastic fashion in McKenna's latest red-hot McCloud sizzler (Edge of Midnight; etc.). After recovering from an injury suffered while trying to prevent a drowning, Kev, now 40-ish, begins remembering what happened leading up to the traumatic events that left him an amnesiac and is lured back into the dark web cast by the evil scientists intent on completing the now-dead psycho scientist Christopher Osterman's devious mind-control invention. When Kev meets graphic novelist Edie Parrish at a book signing, they forge a connection that's deeper than romantic; as it turns out, Edie has psychic powers, a history with Osterman, and believes Kev may have inspired the hero of her graphic novel. McKenna's steamy style, sci-fi twists, and possible family reunion makes this the best McCloud update yet, but readers who aren't already well versed in the series will want to start with the earlier volumes. (June)
Un-Nappily in Love Trisha R. Thomas. St. Martin's Griffin, $13.99 paper (288p) ISBN 978-0-312-55763-8
In this latest entry in the juicy Nappily series (Nappily in Bloom, etc.), the unflappable and always proudly nappy-haired Atlanta florist, Venus Johnston Parson, discovers once again that life with former rap artist, Jake, can't always be a bed of roses. When Jake becomes a budding film star, appearing with his first love, Sirena Lassiter, in their hit movie, True Beauty, the thorns are unusually sharp. Venus, the mother of cute five-year-old Mya, fears Sirena is after Jake even though she's engaged to Earl Benning, CEO of Rise Records. As the co-stars create a media frenzy, Venus, home in Atlanta, tries to enjoy a visit from Pauletta, her mother, who's still fighting cancer, and be supportive of her friend, Miriam, whose husband's having an affair. Venus realizes she's going to have to fight for her man when the gossip escalates and Sirena reveals a shocker from the past. Thomas portrays a believable young family tested by real-life concerns and enhanced by the shiny celebrity angle, but it's her wry humor that keeps this delightful series blooming. (June)
Justice in June Barbara Levenson. Oceanview (Midpoint, dist.), $24.95 (312p) ISBN 978-1-933515-71-7
Protecting the rights of a suspected Argentine terrorist and those of a well-respected judge keeps Mary Magruder Katz hopping in Levenson's provocative, if at times clunky, second thriller to feature the Miami criminal defense attorney (after Fatal February). Through Mary's half-Cuban lover, Carlos Martin, who's pressuring her to marry him, Mary winds up representing Luis Corona, the frightened son of a friend of Carlos's uncle. Federal authorities arrested Luis after an incident on a flight from Buenos Aires, and he's in danger of being shipped to Guantánamo. Meanwhile, Mary is fighting for another client, Judge Elizabeth Maxwell, who's under investigation by the State Attorney's Office for allegedly fixing drug cases. The judge, who's involved in a secret relationship with a married lawyer, is understandably frantic, but Mary manages to keep her cool as she strives to untangle two complicated cases. (June)
Nancy's Theory of Style Grace Coopersmith. Gallery, $15 paper (384p) ISBN 978-1-4165-9886-2
Coopersmith's chick lit debut is appropriately witty and zany, but without much substance. Her heroine, Nancy Carrington-Chambers, is a Bay area socialite whose perfect wedding hasn't resulted in the perfect marriage. Three years in, she decides to take a sabbatical from the increasingly boorish Todd and concentrate on her burgeoning event-planning business, Froth. Todd agreeably arranges an assistant for her: Derek, the gay English assistant she's always dreamed of having. Nancy's neat and orderly existence comes to an end, though, after she is conned into caring for her flighty cousin's four-year-old daughter, Eugenia, and things further spin out of control when she begins to fall in love with Derek. Coopersmith's deft hand with humor works best with the purposeful malapropisms peppered throughout Nancy's dialogue, which she refers to as “errant nitwittery” but her attempts to deepen the story can't compete with the comic tone. The book is more icing than cake, but Nancy does grow up as a result of parenting Eugenia, becomes more decisive and substantial as a person, and the neat little bow that ties up the story will satisfy most readers. (June)
Simple Secrets Nancy Mehl. Barbour, $12.99 paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-60260-512-1
Cozy mystery author Mehl (In the Dead of Winter) offers fans a new tale turning on the age-old collision of ultraconservative religion and contemporary grace-driven faith. Gracie Temple (city girl) and Sam Goodrich (smalltown fruit farmer) find themselves thrown together after Gracie inherits her deceased uncle's home in a Mennonite community. From the get-go, Gracie has some negative vibes about the whole situation since her uncle shunned her parents years earlier, when they left the community. Still, Gracie travels to her inheritance and soon discovers a cryptic letter from her uncle making a claim that leaves Gracie's mind and heart spinning. In the days that follow, Gracie and Sam become close allies in the search for truth, and this alliance comes with no little cost. As Gracie notes, all around are friendly, nice people—one of whom is a killer. Mehl's dialogue reads smoothly enough throughout, but even this vital narrative element isn't enough to overcome the all-too-predictable story line. (June)
The Mailbox Marybeth Whalen. David C. Cook, $14.99 paper (384p) ISBN 978-0-7814-0369-6
Nonfiction author Whalen pens her first novel, centered on an actual landmark mailbox in Sunset Beach, N.C. Over a span of some 20 years, Lindsey Adams makes summer visits to the Kindred Spirit mailbox and deposits an annual written update on her life. When her husband divorces her, Lindsey makes the trek again and meets up with long-lost love, Campbell Forrester, whose own marriage dissolved years earlier. Unsure they can rekindle their youthful love, both Lindsey and Campbell struggle to make the leap from teenage infatuation to a lasting adult commitment. Whalen's use of a mailbox as the tie between people, memories, and romantic love is intriguing, and she makes it work more effectively than a reader might expect. (June)
The Extinction Event David Black. Forge, $25.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-7653-2261-6
Black (Like Father) swirls noirish mystery elements, fine writing, and engaging characters into a complicated, sexy thriller that will please readers of any genre. A late-night phone call to Mycenae, N.Y., lawyer Jack Slidell sends him to a nearby motel, where he finds his boss, Frank Milhet, dead, a prostitute beaten unconscious, and lots of crack cocaine scattered about the seedy motel room. The police suspect Jack, who has a history of past misdeeds, but don't charge him with any crime. Along with attractive fellow lawyer Caroline Wonder, Jack sets out to clear his name. In short order, Jack takes three serious beatings and a knifing, and a mysterious figure known as the Cowboy gets on his tail. The secret of Frank's murder, which may have nationwide consequences, could be tied to a wealthy local family with links to a utility company. The ending will leave some heaving the book across the room, some scratching their heads, and others haunted for days. (May)
Poetry
Present Tense Anna Rabinowitz. Omnidawn (IPG, dist.), $15.95 (96p) ISBN 978-1-890650-45-2
The notes section in Rabinowitz's fourth collection—a searing book-length poem in four parts—reveals the great range of historic individuals and texts quoted and reworked: among them, Woody Allen, Sun Tsu, Chief Seattle, the Book of Proverbs, and declassified CIA counterintelligence interrogation manuals. One poem imagines Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein in dialogue on “the menace of war,” a central concern here. Rabinowitz (The Wanton Sublime) candidly unloads her outrage and despair at humanity's violent and destructive impulses, and throughout offers an unbridled account of an apocalypse-in-the-now, replete with “battalions of wound”; “Weepdirge and bleat of denuded trees”; and “Blustery discord of harmonic debris.” Her imagery and argument, bearing witness to “grizzly gunfire” and “mortgaged mayhem of markets,” can at times feel heavy-handed and frenzied. But this seems to be precisely her point—our times demand a raised voice. “Testimony is a cryptic relic deformed by the violence of authority,” writes Rabinowitz, who depicts a live-action struggle to resist such deformation and to speak openly about the horrors of contemporary life. (June)
World Enough Maureen N. McLane. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25 (160p) ISBN 978-0-374-29295-9
McLane is a professor of English at NYU, a prolific book critic and specialist in British romanticism. Her academic proclivities are readily apparent in her second collection: “what is called thinking/ is obsessing” she writes, echoing and answering the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. This book has the overall feel of a poetic diary, with meditations on the changing seasons, travel, politics, love affairs, and the mind itself, as McLane (Same Life) ventures to understand, via various methods, what it means to live in a particular epoch: “The question/ is the ratio of the palpable hurt/ to the general session/ of life in an era.” There, and elsewhere, McLane crosses the streams of academic and accessibly passionate language, creating a kind of emotional, autobiographical criticism in hip free verse: “rain rain and the trees/ engulfed I am tired/ of reading Russians their suffering/ souls their tribulations.” McLane, armed with a sharp wit, engages in an ambitious poetic project, as she confronts the very meaning of “the shadowed hours” of time past, present, and future. (June)
The Sore Throat and Other Poems Aaron Kunin. Fence (UPNE, dist.), $16 (80p) ISBN 978-1-934200-34-6
Obsessive tics, habits, and mathematico-linguistic games lie behind some of the forms in Kunin's persistently fascinating, if occasionally appalling, sophomore effort, composed (the foreword says) with a “limited vocabulary” of 170-200 words, including very common verbs and pronouns, but also “dollar,” “laughter,” and “rat.” “I'm inventing a machine,” Kunin says, “for concealing my desire”: his poems reveal, instead, the way that all desire, all human action, can make people look and sound oddly like machines. Kunin announces his ambition to expand the reach of the language: “It must be possible,” he writes, “otherwise// We would not have a word for it.” His estranged quatrains and nearly affectless prose poems, reaching back to the poetry of Samuel Beckett and to the early days of computer science, produce effects American poets could not have imagined before. For every passage that seems at first hard to decode, controlled wholly by absurd procedures, Kunin adds one that seems confrontationally pellucid. He is an experimental poet, but also an aphorist, even an insult comic: “You are good for seeing and pleasure; your good habits are talking and laughter,” one page concludes. “I wonder why you are weeping with your brother, the moron.” (May)
The Correct Spelling and Exact Meaning Richard Jones. Copper Canyon (Consortium, dist.), $15 (94p) ISBN 978-1-55659-317-8
Jones is nothing if not sincere, and his fluent free verse and glowing prose poems pursue some very traditional goals: “I tell my students I don't have the wisdom/ to explain beauty and mystery,” he declares, but beauty and mystery are what he finds, commemorating parents and friends, contemplating the art of poetry, and celebrating his young children—his son, William, for example, and “the Zen wisdom of his six-year-old mind.” Jones (Apropos of Nothing) writes clear lines imbued with a serious optimism and an American informality, ready to make his “silver pencil sharpener” a fit symbol of “the marriage of utility and beauty.” This sixth book celebrates marriage and family, as it celebrates the everyday: it interrupts the quest for “exact meaning” with a set of witty short poems about punctuation. Even there, though, Jones reaches for things of the spirit: a dash is “on headstones/ the life”; the signs “&>“ are “what he” (i.e., Jesus) “wrote with his finger in the dirt.” As articulate as he can be, Jones pays homage to a numinous—sometimes, a Christian—presence greater than words: “if that's what it takes to hold/ pure poetry in my hand,” one poem decides, “I'll become like a child/ waiting to decipher/ text messages from God.” (May)
The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poems Robert Hass. Ecco, $34.99 (368p) ISBN 978-0-06-192382-1
Hass's first retrospective allows us to trace the development of the narrative voice he began cultivating most powerfully with 1979's Praise. Who can forget their first reading of “Meditation at Lagunitas,” in which Hass tells us we call it longing “because desire is full/ of endless distances”? The new poems show Hass at the height of his narrative powers, as in “Some of David's Story,” where the dissolution of a loving relationship is told to us in brief anecdotes by David himself. Recent poems from Time and Materials ask direct, bird's-eye view questions: “What is to be done with our species? Because/ We know we're going to die, to be submitted to that tingling of atoms once again.” Hass's work derives its strength from how it challenges both breath and line. Few are the poems in which Hass doesn't push his breath, and ours, almost to the point of breaking. He tries to get every word he can into each line, every detail he can into each poem, as though, if these feats are possible, then it's also possible to save some part of the world from dissolution. (Apr.)
The Sleep Hotel Amy Newlove Schroeder. Oberlin College/Field, $15.95 (80p) ISBN 978-0-932440-39-6
The harsh lines and sentence fragments in Schroeder's hard-to-forget debut create collisions between the libidinal and the numinous: “Struggling to get out/ from under the hood of the world,” the poet compares her unsatisfied desire to “Sailboats asleep in their slips,” declaring “I love you the way the ground loves the flame.” Those phrases may begin to show the seriousness with which these taut poems take their goals: compressed yet raw, alert to the weights of words yet focused on emotion so strong it bends language all out of shape. Pre-Socratic philosophers, Jungian psychoanalysis, the heart-on-sleeve feel of Spanish modernism, and memories of loneliness in St. Louis all contribute to these always brief, always intense, and yet satisfyingly various pages, one about sex, another about a circus, another about a car ride on Interstate 5, another about a self-destructive friend: “What does it feel like to be in the rain of fire/ Pull the veil of leaves over your face & sleep inside the burlap sack.” Schroeder ought to appeal to readers who like Franz Wright, though she does not share Wright's recourse to doctrinal religion. Instead, she looks within her troubled self. (Apr.)
This Lamentable City Polina Barskova, edited and trans. from the Russian by Ilya Kaminsky. Tupelo (Consortium, dist.), $11.95 (48p) ISBN 978-1-932195-83-5
Barskova is a poet whose voice is at once so intimate and taunting, it can be almost impossible to resist her. “Are you still frightened,” begins the book's first poem, “my clueless devochka?” It is this closeness, as though her lines are whispered in your ear, that allows Barskova to turn away from us with such terrific effect in her poems. “Now you will forget what you desired,” she writes, “Now,/ Who you were.” Though only 10 poems appear in this collection, Barskova demonstrates an extraordinary amount of vocal variation, as in “When someone dies...,” in which Barskova is clear and unforgiving in her instructions on how to handle a dead man: “Right now you should lick him.” In deceptively simple English, Kaminsky's translation (with Matthew Zapruder) allows Barskova's brusque, plainspoken Russian to shine through. The few muddled moments in the translation arise out of an attempt to be both simple and abstract with the English (the single line, “Left to the right directly straight-ahead,” for instance). Nevertheless, Barskova's is a voice of stunning originality and eroticism. (Apr.)
The Art of the Sonnet Stephen Burt and David Mikics. Harvard Univ., $35 (376p) ISBN 978-0-674-04814-0
The sonnet may well be the poetic form that most often comes to mind when anyone thinks of poetry. Fourteen lines long, in open and closed structures, sonnets have been prominent over the past 400 years of poetic history. In this unusual book—half anthology, half collection of essays—Burt and Mikics, both prolific critics of poetry (Burt is also a poet himself) choose 100 sonnets and for each offer a thoughtful, scholarly, though highly accessible commentary. The oldest poem is Thomas Wyatt's “Whoso List to Hunt” (1557), and the newest is by the contemporary poet D.A. Powell, first published last year. In between, there's everything from Shakespeare and Wordsworth to Robert Lowell and Lucie Brock-Broido. Of “Redemption,” George Herbert's sonnet about the Resurrection of Christ, Mikics writes, “Herbert's Savior... shocks us into attention.” Of one of Ted Berrigan's sonnets, Burt says, “The disorientation, the wildness, is part of the point: no more organized poem would do.” While this anthology would make a wonderful textbook for a prosody class, its best audience may be anyone who wants to delve deeply into the heart of poetry. Learnéd as well as passionate, this book is a delight. (Apr.)
Black Life Dorothea Lasky. Wave Books (Consortium, dist.), $14 (96p) ISBN 978-1-933517-43-8
“All poetry that matters today has feelings in it,” says Lasky deep into her second book, which illustrates how that statement can be true of poems that are also hip and ironic. Though cut of the same cloth as her debut, Awe, this second book is more grown up, darker, burdened with greater weight and responsibility—though still full of flippant, adorable, and silly asides: “The orderly staff waits with the bleach/ Asking me where the diapers are, I do not know,” she remarks in a poem about a father's failing battle with Alzheimer's disease. The death of a father and the loss of a husband come up again and again. Religious faith is also a frequent subject, handled in the same quirky, faux-childish voice as everything else in Lasky's world: “There is only Jesus waiting in my closet/ Like he has been since I was 4 with his red eyes.” If these poems, cast in ragged columns and haphazard lines, often seem dashed off, that's part of the point: they surge with immediacy, meaning and not meaning what they say: “There is a lot to be sad about/ But no point in feeling that sadness/ In a world that has no capacity/ To take your sadness from you in a kind way.” (Apr.)
Seven Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004: The Joy of Cooking Tan Lin. Wesleyan Univ., $50 (224p) ISBN 978-0-8195-6928-8; $22.95 paper ISBN 978-0-8195-6929-5
Lin writes provocative prose poems, fragments of arguments designed to persuade readers (or designed not to persuade them) that art should be relaxingly meaningless, that “literature should function as a pattern with a label on it, like the lines in a parking lot at the local A&P,” that writing should be like “a waiting area, time slot, universal market/ currency.” Lin also writes fragments of memoirs, as when he remembers his first adult years in New York. He takes seriously our postmodern condition, accepting and even celebrating the idea that we ourselves are manufactured, synthetic, interchangeable, or else that we would like to be that way. Always conscious of the physical form of a book, Lin interrupts his texts not only with photographs, nearly blank pages and diagrams, but with the front and back matter of “normal” books (acknowledgments, permissions page). Lin is also a gallery artist with a heady record of site-specific and video works, and this new volume owes much to gallery art; its high-concept fun and its serious provocations should get much attention from the proponents of conceptualism and the wider audience for pranks, provocations, and challenges of any artful sort. (Apr.)
I Was the Jukebox Sandra Beasley. Norton, $24.95 (96p) ISBN 978-0-393-07651-6
More fun than most recent books, Beasley's second collection can also get quite serious: in the best parts, the poet pretends she is any number of nonhuman things—a jukebox, an orchid, the Egyptian god Osiris, an eggplant (in a sestina), grains of sand. She also writes “love poems” to big ideas: “Love Poem for College” begins “You hit on me. You hit on everyone.” Beasley portrays the sometimes chaotic landscape between sex and love, youth and adulthood, the young men and women who hope for everything and the grownups who settle for less. “For an hour I forgot my fat self./ My neurotic innards, my addiction to alignment,” says the piano, remembering when she was played. In “Another Failed Poem About Music,” “even the name” of a percussion instrument, “triangle... is a perfect betrayal.” Beasley can sound regretful, but also flirtatious: “You are the loneliest of the three bears,” she says in “Love Poem for Wednesday,” “hoping/ to come home and find someone in your bed.” If Beasley's conceits owe something to Kenneth Koch, her tone and her subjects might place her with chick lit, too: this is a book that could go a long way. (Apr.)
Juvenilia Ken Chen. Yale Univ., $18 (112p) ISBN 978-0-300-16008-6
The latest Yale Younger Poet writes about his Chinese-American heritage; he draws on classic Chinese poets, such as Wang Wei and Li Yu. Yet his verse and prose stand at the farthest possible remove from the memoirlike poems, and the poems of first-person “identity,” that have characterized so much recent verse about U.S. immigrant life. Instead, Chen is “experimental” in the best and broadest sense of the term: each new page brings an experiment in self-presentation, in sentence, syntax, or (long) line. Prose poems digress into semantic analysis (“Love Is Like Tautology in the Same Way Like Is Like Tautology”); open-field verse resembles now an alienated, impersonal short story, now a page from an anguished diary: “He studies the ceiling for hours before he sleeps—for the ceiling is ours./ He wore the bedroom ceiling as his eyelid.” Self-consciousness (about travel, about “voice”) does not take him away from his sense of himself: rather, it becomes him, as when he begins: “The first sentence of this poem is not about you./ In this respect, it is unlike the last sentence and my heart.” Chen's parents appear as characters in the anti-novel, anti-memoir, first-person sequence. The New York-based Chen—who runs the Asian American Writers' Workshop—deserves attention for his daring invention, for the heretofore unknown hybrids throughout his work. (Apr.)
Mystery
The Dog Park Club Cynthia Robinson. Minotaur, $24.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-312-55973-1
Robinson's debut may disappoint those expecting a lighthearted, pet-themed cozy. Max Bravo, a wise-cracking gay opera singer, and his best friend, advertising whiz Claudia Fantini, who's heartbroken that her husband wants a divorce, find solace taking the husband's dog, Asta, to a Berkeley, Calif., dog park. There Claudia and Max hang out with a variety of fellow dog lovers, including a “hoary-headed Vietnam vet,” a “sartorially offensive” software engineer from Barcelona, and bank loan officer Amy Carter, who's pregnant. After the popular Amy vanishes and the police fail to find her, Max and company, including Max's visiting German boyfriend, investigate, staking out Amy's house because they suspect her husband has killed her. An uncertain blend of mystery, humor, and the paranormal, this first in a projected series builds to a downer of an ending. Robinson has style, but she needs to settle on a more consistent tone in the sequel. (July)
The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing: From the Files of Vish Puri, India's “Most Private Investigator” Tarquin Hall. Simon & Schuster, $24 (320p) ISBN 978-1-4165-8369-1
Near the start of Hall's highly amusing second Vish Puri whodunit (after 2009's The Case of the Missing Servant), Dr. Suresh Jha, the founder of the DIRE (Delhi Institute of Rationalism and Education), dies while doing his morning exercises on Delhi's Rajpath with the members of his laughing club, apparently slain by Kali, the four-armed goddess of destruction. In the media frenzy that follows, Insp. Jagat Prakash Singh turns for help to Puri, a believer in miracles, who's nonetheless skeptical of this one. Puri proceeds to unravel the many complications that keep the reader on tenterhooks until the final twist. Hall has an unerring ear for the vagaries of Indian English, the Indian penchant for punning acronyms, peculiarly Indian problems (“Guests are kindly requested not to do urination in water”), and an obvious affection for India, warts and all. (June)
The Broken Blue Line Connie Dial. Permanent, $28 (256p) ISBN 978-1-57962-200-8
LAPD internal affairs detective Mike Turner and a few colleagues risk lives and careers to follow the spirit, if not the letter, of the law in Dial's competent follow-up to Internal Affairs (2009). Turner is an important cog in a squad that takes down cops who break the laws they're intended to enforce. Unfortunately, his boss, Lieutenant Metcalfe, is primarily concerned with career advancement, and squad leader Tom Weaver is careful to play by the book and won't buck Metcalfe. Turner is willing to protect rasher comrades as they try to catch crooked cop Ian Conner, who's faked a back injury and is “stealing guns and committing felonies with a gang of white boys and Mexicans in the Valley.” On the personal side, Turner must deal with an elderly retired cop he takes in as well as his flighty on-again/off-again girlfriend. Dial, a 27-year veteran of the LAPD, paints a dispiriting picture of a force riven by incompetence and ambition. (June)
Skein of the Crime Maggie Sefton. Berkley Prime Crime, $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-425-23438-9
Sefton's somber eighth knitting mystery to feature Fort Connor, Colo., financial consultant Kelly Flynn (after 2009's Dropped Dead Stitch) gets off to a slow start, but gradually picks up steam. While Kelly's romance with her longtime architect boyfriend, Steve Townsend, suffers, she helps her IT consultant friend, Megan Smith, plan Megan's upcoming wedding and teach a House of Lambspun knitting class. When Holly Kaiser, a college student who had been dating the son of a Lambspun knitting teacher, dies of a drug overdose, Kelly once again turns amateur sleuth. The more Kelly learns about Holly, who was far too fond of Ecstasy, the more she suspects the fatal overdose was no accident. The action builds to an intriguing cliffhanger. Directions for a braided knit scarf and a carrot cake recipe are a bonus. (June)
Eye of the Law Cora Harrison. Severn, $28.95 (224p) ISBN 978-0-7278-6873-2
Set in 1510, Harrison's excellent fifth Irish historical (after 2009's Writ in Stone) finds series heroine Mara, the brehon of the kingdom of the Burren who serves both as an investigating magistrate and law school professor, married to King Turlough Donn and expecting his child. When two strangers arrive from the Aran Islands to announce that one of them, 20-year-old Iarla, is the previously unknown son of local noble Ardal O'Lochlainn, they cite as evidence the dying confession of Iarla's mother. That statement, under existing law, is considered the most sacred of deathbed oaths. Since Iarla and Ardal don't resemble each other, Mara decides to wait two weeks before rendering her verdict on their relationship. Soon afterward, someone kills Iarla by poking a knife or stick into one of his eyes, leaving the body outside a cave reputed to be the home of a malevolent one-eyed god. Harrison smoothly integrates the legal system of 16th-century Ireland into the story line. (June)
Blood, Guts & Whiskey Edited by Todd Robinson. Kensington, $14 paper (336p) ISBN 978-0-7582-2268-8
Twenty-four gritty, violent stories of the mean streets slug their way through a third volume mostly culled from the Web zine Thuglit (after Hardcore Hardboiled and Sex, Thugs, and Rock & Roll). Max Allan Collins's concise yet wide-ranging introduction traces the tough guy school of short crime fiction from Hammett writing in the pulp Black Mask up to the current generation riffing off the films of Tarantino. Highlights include the Derringer Award—winning “The Cost of Doing Business” by Mike Penncavage, and a fistful of tales appearing for the first time anywhere from the likes of upcoming noir stars such as Dave Zeltserman (“Bad Move”) and Tom Piccirilli (“The Return of Inspiration”). For dedicated fans of the genre, this anthology is worth the money just for “Death of a Rat,” a prison yarn found in the files of the late Edward Bunker (aka Mr. Blue in Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs), iconic author of No Beast So Fierce. These stories are as bleak and exciting as a cold rainstorm. (June)
A Killing Resurrected: A DCI Neil Paget Mystery Frank Smith. Severn, $28.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-7278-6878-7
In Smith's engaging eighth procedural to feature Broadminster Det. Chief Insp. Neil Paget (after 2009's The Cold Hand of Malice), Paget looks into a 13-year-old case after new information comes to light. Scrawled notes, written by 19-year-old Barry Grant before he blew his head off with a shotgun, reveal that Barry was the getaway driver for a gang that committed several robberies and killed two people in the last one. Paget directs a finely drawn cast of supporting characters, including Det. Sgt. John Tregalles and Det. Constable Molly Forsythe, as they begin the arduous task of re-interviewing the many victims and witnesses and re-examining evidence and files. The cold case heats up when an arsonist tries to destroy Grant's old home and a potential witness is almost beaten to death. Smith keeps readers interested and in doubt all the way to the revelation of the surprising culprits. (June)
The Ninth Step: A Jack Leightner Crime Novel Gabriel Cohen. Minotaur, $24.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-312-62501-6
A family tragedy comes back to haunt Jack Leightner in Cohen's less than inspired fourth crime novel featuring the Brooklyn homicide detective (after 2009's Neptune Avenue). In 1965, Jack watched as his 13-year-old brother, Petey, was stabbed to death by an older black teenager, who had demanded that they hand over a case of liquor. Four decades later, the killer, Darnel Teague Jr., who was never caught, shows up at Leightner's front door and confesses to the crime as part of his recovery from alcohol abuse. Darnel further upends the policeman's world by adding that an Italian-American man, a stranger whose name Darnel never learned, hired him to teach the Leightner brothers a lesson. A fresh case—a bludgeoning murder in a deli apparently committed by a terrorist—distracts Jack from trying to identify the man out to get him and Petey back in '65. The truth behind the fatal mugging may strike some readers as a letdown. (June)
Deliver Us from Evil: A Hennessey and Yellich Mystery Peter Turnbull. Severn, $27.95 (176p) ISBN 978-0-7278-6892-3
At the start of this absorbing entry in Turnbull's long-running Vale of York police series (Informed Consent, etc.), a man out for his morning stroll happens on the frozen body of an elegantly dressed woman seated on a grassy canal bank. Bruise marks on the woman's neck suggest foul play. She has no handbag, but a two-year-old utility bill carefully tucked in her shoe may provide a clue to her killer. When Det. Chief Insp. George Hennessey and Det. Sgt. Somerled Yellich investigate, they discover that the victim had worked as a companion to a number of elderly men. In each case, she'd used a different name, worn a wig, and departed with her charge's valuables. Reports of a strange Canadian gentleman in the area add to the mystery. Yellich and a detective constable travel to Ontario in search of answers. This well-plotted procedural takes several sudden twists and turns before reaching the surprise ending. (June)
SF/Fantasy/Horror
The Machinery of Light David J. Williams. Spectra, $15 paper (416p) ISBN 978-0-553-38543-4
The 22nd century's WWIII crashes to an unexpected end in this slam-bang conclusion to Williams's Autumn Rain trilogy (after 2008's The Mirrored Heavens and 2009's The Burning Skies). The Russia- and China-led Eurasian Alliance uses two heretofore secret megaspaceships to blast the U.S. and bring the American space fleet to its knees, while the spooky commando triads of Autumn Rain carry out desperate clandestine maneuvers. At the focus of the bloody action is Claire Haskell, the Manilishi, a “posthuman” supercomputer/cyborg able to implement the theories of her designer Matthew Sinclair, who intends to become God via experiments with teleportation, telepathy, and time travel. Williams's readers will eagerly devour this cyberpunk feeding frenzy, long on dizzying action and sinister tangled politics, but newcomers to the series will struggle with the shallow characterizations and overdoses of X-rated vocabulary. (June)
Blood Song Cat Adams. Tor, $14.99 paper (384p) ISBN 978-0-7653-2494-8
In this fast-paced urban fantasy, Adams (Magic's Design), the joint pseudonym for C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp (the Sazi series), introduces readers to a new world full of treachery and action. Tough-as-nails bodyguard Celia Graves protects the rich and famous from ghosts, demons, and other supernatural entities. While guarding the prince of a tiny European country, Celia is caught in a vampire ambush that leaves her wounded and partially transformed. Now she has to figure out her new limits and powers, destroy her sire before he can control her, and put together the pieces of a larger plan in which she's just a pawn. The story line and setting will draw in readers from the start, but late revelations may have them paging backwards to pick up on clues, and some answers will just have to wait for the sequels. (June)
Urbis Morpheos Stephen Palmer. PS Publishing, $20 (312p) ISBN 978-1-906301-43-9
Challenging sometimes to the point of impenetrability, Palmer's first novel since 2004's Hallucinating details a far-future battle between natural and manufactured ecosystems. Like his music (with the rock/electronica group Mooch) and art (including the cover art for this volume), Palmer's writing can only be called psychedelic. The world is richly imagined, unusual, and creative, full of narcoleptic snow, plastic vultures, and living databases called “wrealities,” but dense prose, the choice of giving two main characters virtually the same name, seemingly random point of view shifts, and a wealth of unexplained details occasionally render the story incomprehensible. Only determined readers will make their way to the final page, but those who do will find the ending worth it. (June)
Redemption in Indigo Karen Lord. Small Beer (www.smallbeerpress.com), $16 paper (180p) ISBN 978-1-9315-2066-9
Lord's debut, a retelling of a Senegalese folktale, packs a great deal of subtly alluring storytelling into this small package. Paama flees her gluttonous husband, Ansige; two years later, he hires the master tracker Kwame to find her. Kwame reluctantly takes the job to finance his own wanderlust. These events draw the attention of the Indigo Lord, one of the powerful spirits called Djombi. He wielded the power of Chaos until it was taken from him and given to Paama, and he wants it back. An unnamed narrator, sometimes serious and often mischievous, spins delicate but powerful descriptions of locations, emotions, and the protagonists' great flaws and great strengths as they interact with family, poets, tricksters, sufferers of tragedy, and—of course—occasional moments of pure chaos. (June)
Clementine Cherie Priest. Subterranean (www.subterraneanpress.com), $25 (208p) ISBN 978-1-59606-308-2
Piracy meets politics head-on in this steampunk thriller, loosely linked to Priest's much-lauded Boneshaker (2009). Maria Isabella Boyd, a notorious former actress and Confederate spy, is on her first mission for the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. The airship Clementine must deliver its cargo unimpeded, but its former owner, escaped slave—turned—air pirate Croggon Hainey, is determined to recover the ship he stole fair and square. A simple pursuit quickly evolves, and soon Maria and Croggon are forced to fight on the same side. Explosive battle scenes, riveting action, and a sharp-eyed examination of the mistrust between Croggon's all-black crew and very white, very Southern Maria play out in a desperate race against the clock. Though the unflinching portrayal of complex race relations is aimed at adult readers, Priest's swashbuckling tale is also quite accessible for older teens. (June)
Procession of the Dead Darren Shan. Grand Central, $19.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-446-55175-5
Shan's dystopic thriller, the first in a trilogy already published in the U.K., is an excellent, twisting foray into a world of deceit, murder, and mystery. Capac Raimi arrives in an unnamed city, a place ruled by a man known as the Cardinal, and quickly realizes that he has no memory of his life elsewhere. When the Cardinal kills Capac's uncle and offers Capac a job based on a dream and Capac's Incan name, the young man's life takes a turn for the fantastical. While training to serve the Cardinal, Capac embarks on a strange, gripping search for clues to both the disappearances of his friends and his own past. The dialogue is realistic, the characters and settings are vivid, and the plotting is tight, complemented perfectly by a bleak, desolate tone. Any fan of postapocalyptic fiction will find it absolutely riveting. (June)
Occultation Laird Barron. Night Shade (Diamond, dist.), $24.95 (248p) ISBN 978-1-59780-192-8
Writing with a poet's eye for detail and a folklorist's understanding of mythos, Barron lives up to his reputation for elegant, subtle, and nightmare-inducing tales with a Lovecraftian edge in his second short story collection (after 2007's The Imago Sequence and Other Stories), which includes six reprints and three original stories. In “The Lagerstätte,” a woman who cannot come to terms with her husband's loss clings to an occult artifact said to reunite lovers whom death has separated. A guerrilla art exhibit turns murderous in the taut and bloody “Strappado.” A mysterious guidebook leads four men on a terrifying camping trip in “Mysterium Tremendum.” Heartbreaking, hilarious, sophisticated, and gory, these stories will thrill, trouble, and haunt Barron's fans and have newcomers scrambling to search for his other work. (June)
Distant Thunders: Destroyermen, Book 4 Taylor Anderson. Roc, $24.95 (400p) ISBN 978-0-451-46333-3
Rebuilding after the ship-shattering climax of 2009's Maelstrom, Capt. Matt Reddy and the crew of the dimensionally misplaced USS Walker continue pushing their Bronze Age allies, the Lemurians, through the Industrial Revolution to take the war to the invading reptilian Grik. Somewhat aided by the paddle-wheel steam frigates of New Britain, Reddy liberates conquered cities to the west and then races to the east in a refloated Walker to re-rescue New British princess Rebecca Anne McDonald. The fun of watching eager aviators take to the air in carved wooden aircraft leavens the nostalgic sense of worlds being left behind and cultures forced by war to undergo unpleasant changes. Anderson raises questions about the morality of chemical warfare, genocide, and summary execution in wartime while holding out the possibility of diplomacy with relentless killers. (June)
The Best Horror of the Year, Vol. 2 Edited by Ellen Datlow. Night Shade (Diamond, dist.), $15.95 paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-59780-173-7
Prolific anthologist Datlow continues her fine showcase series (originally part of the long-running Year's Best Fantasy and Horror) with 17 scary stories published in 2009. Perhaps the creepiest is “each thing i show you is a piece of my death,” in which Gemma Files and Stephen J. Barringer collect e-mail and other documents about a mysterious naked man who crashes the sets of movies and TV shows. Michael Marshall Smith's “What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night” is a classically creepy tale, and Stephen Graham Jones offers a twisted take on snake-oil salesmen in “Lonegan's Luck.” There are a few underwhelming choices—notably Nina Allen's weak “The Lammas Worm”—and readers of Datlow's other anthologies will see many familiar names, but overall, this is a worthy addition to the series. (June)
Mass Market
Shut Up and Kiss Me Christie Craig. Dorchester, $7.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-505-52799-8
Craig (Divorced, Desperate and Deceived) turns her latest smalltown romance into a delightful comedy of errors. Hired by the mayor of Precious, Tex., to do a PR shoot that will draw visitors to the tiny town, photojournalist Shala Winters dodges burglars, would-be assassins, and vandals while tangling with sexy police chief Sky Gomez, who doesn't want her taking pictures of Native American rituals and turning Precious into a tourist trap. Sky doesn't believe in soul mates, though his foster father has prophetic dreams of Sky and Shala together. Shala, orphaned and divorced, is wary of men and furiously defensive of her independence. Many of Precious's standoffish, quirky, nosy residents are of Native American descent, but the culture feels like an afterthought; Craig stays focused on playfulness and sexual tension, and hits all the high notes en route to happily ever after. (June)
Grace Under Pressure Julie Hyzy. Berkley Prime Crime, $7.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-425-23521-8
Launching the Manor of Murder series with plenty of thrills and laughs, Hyzy (the White House Chef mysteries) creates the well-researched and believable estate of Marshfield Manor, part mansion and part museum. As assistant curator Grace Wheaton is handling a loud disturbance in the tea room, gunshots ring out from the fourth floor. Head curator Abe is killed, and the murderer mysteriously vanishes from the study. When billionaire Bennett Marshfield reveals that he's been receiving threatening letters from someone who might be the killer, Grace undertakes an amateur investigation, which includes looking into a local Ponzi scheme and her own family secrets. Well-drawn characters like busybody secretary Frances, handsome landscape architect Jack, and stalking wannabe PI Ronny are supported by lively subplots, laying series groundwork to rival Marshfield Manor's own elaborate structure. (June)
The Forbidden Rose Joanna Bourne. Berkley Sensation, $7.99 (400p) ISBN 978-0-425-23561-4
Bourne (The Spymaster's Lady) returns to the French Revolution for her latest romance, this time matching up an English spy and a French aristocrat. Marguerite de Fleurignac, a noblewoman who smuggles émigrés to England, encounters William Doyle in the charred remains of her chateau outside of Paris. She needs sanctuary and agrees to let him escort her through the French countryside. Though she pretends to be Scottish and he claims to be French, no one in this book seems able to keep secrets: William knows Marguerite's identity, she and the French secret police both know he is hunting her father, and everyone, including the secret police and the British, knows everything about the smugglers. Nonetheless, the romance is sweet, and once William and Marguerite admit their love, the ensuing adventure story is everything a spy thriller should be. (June)
Moon Sworn Keri Arthur. Dell, $7.99 (432p) ISBN 978-0-440-24571-1
In the ninth and final entry in Arthur's deservedly popular Guardian series (after 2009's Bound to Shadows), a strong start and a terrific ending are poorly served by a disjointed middle. As series heroine Riley Jensen, a part-vampire/part-werewolf investigator, tries to find the perpetrator of a series of ritualistic murders, she must cope with her ever-changing biology and the knowledge that she killed her soul mate. She begins to contemplate leaving her job and shacking up with Quinn, her centuries-old vampire lover. Then a longstanding enemy destroys Quinn's car—with Quinn in it—and Riley's world goes black. She awakens with amnesia and struggles to regain her identity in a lengthy section that reads like an excerpt from a different book and leaves little room for resolving the series, a decision that will sorely disappoint Arthur's fans. (June)
Comics
Koko Be Good Jen Wang. Roaring Brook/First Second, $18.99 paper (304p) ISBN 978-1-59643-555-1
When readers dive into Wang's first graphic novel, they may at first believe they have another slacker coming-of-age story on their hands. And to some extent, that is true, although it travels in unexpected directions. Wang follows three characters as they struggle to define their places in the world. Jon is a recent college graduate planning to follow his older girlfriend to Peru to work for an orphanage, and his story, which opens the book, feels the most familiar. In the midst of his existential crisis, he meets Koko, an eccentric, sometimes almost feral young woman who ricochets from encounter to encounter, often leaving a trail of chaos in her wake. The relatively slim plot follows them, as well as Faron, a slight teenage boy, as they wrestle with what it means to be good and how goodness can be combined with happiness. Wang's strength is her art work. The watercolor panels, with an ochre template, are stunning and emotionally evocative, and the book is at its best when she tells the story through images. At times the dialogue sounds too much like a late-night college bull session, especially when it turns to philosophy. But Wang's delicate images, and her ability to capture the earnest emotions of her characters, should pull in all but the most hard-hearted reader. (Sept.)
Undeleted Scenes Jeffrey Brown. Top Shelf, $15 paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-60309-058-2
Thoroughly engaging and loaded with charm to burn, this latest work from Brown (Clumsy) is a perfect example of how to do autobiographical comics right. The appealingly simple “cartoony” art serves to draw the reader into Brown's world, taking its ordinary protagonist from the daily tribulations of childhood to the self-discoveries of adolescence and college, and on through encounters with a number of girlfriends, eventually resulting in unexpected parenthood. Brown's journey is initially told in snippets that perfectly capture the sometimes disjointed flashbacks one has to one's own formative years, but the narrative's stories soon expand to lengthier pieces that wholly invest the reader in the “now.”. In turns wistful, frank, embarrassing, and funny, some highlights include the cautionary recounting of “David Lynch's Dune Drinking Game,” run-ins with local bums and winos, and an account of his future wife's pregnancy from a confused and somewhat on edge male perspective. An unexpected and very pleasant surprise, this is good stuff that solidly resonates with a palpable and universal humanity and bears repeated readings. (June)
Twin Spica, Vol. 1 Kou Yaginuma. Vertical (www.vertical-inc.com), $10.95 paper (192p) ISBN 978-1-934287-84-2
While replete with giant robots, alien invasions, and incredibly creative mecha that fires the imagination, many Japanese sci-fi entries use their fantastic trappings as an accent to the fascinating and all-too-human protagonists of their narratives. This effort from Yaginuma (Asumi) utterly involves readers in the dreams and ambitions of young Asumi Kamogawa, and it's easy to see why the series was a smash hit in its native land. Thirteen-year-old Asumi lives in Japan in 2024 as the country's space program is resurrecting itself in the wake of a launch tragedy 10 years earlier, and Asumi aims to be among the first wave of young astronauts to take Japan into the stars. Raised by her construction worker father, Asumi is the apple of her dad's eye and he will do everything in his working-class power to make her dream of attending the Tokyo Space School come true. The relationship between father and daughter is very moving, and Asumi's interaction with her equally ambitious schoolmates is also compelling stuff. There's no action to speak of, instead each page contains more genuine emotion than an entire space fleet's worth of similarly themed stories. Opening with a strong introductory volume, this series shows great promise and bodes well for future installments. (May)
Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom Bruce Brown, Nicholas Brondo, Rob Corless, and Karstan Klintzsch. Arcana (www.arcanacomics.com), $12.95 (96p) ISBN 978-1-897548-54-7
The latest in the fertile field of Lovecraft spinoffs follows a young Howard, aka H.P., Lovecraft through an adventure in a dangerous netherworld. The plot takes elements of Lovecraft's actual childhood, including his father's nervous breakdown, and uses them to introduce readers to tropes in Lovecraft's work. The young Howard goes through a portal to another universe, where a mysterious book holds the key to freeing a society of children from an evil power that has encased them in a frozen, hostile world. Howard takes on the quest with the help a giant squid, facing danger and finding many of his assumptions are false. A chilly watercolor palate links the artwork of the various artists—each chapter has a different one—and the emotions on Howard's face become more complex as the story grows darker. Although marketed for all ages, the book, will likely appeal more to younger readers, who should find the plot's twists and turns and the young protagonist appealing. Older readers and hardcore Lovecraft fans may be put off by the juvenile dialogue and some of the panels that play up the cuteness, rather than the horror, of the story. (Mar.)
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| Killing Lincoln (unabr.) | Audio Nonfiction |
| The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus #2) | Children's Fiction |
| Elf on the Shelf | Children's Picture Book |
| Hunger Games | Children's Series & Tie-ins |
| Blue Exorcist, Volume 3 | Graphic Novels |
| Private: #1 Suspect | Hardcover Fiction |
| Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America | Hardcover Nonfiction |
| The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo | Mass Market Paper |
| Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close | Trade Paper |
